


Together

by Noxbait



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Brothers, Gen, Season/Series 15, Supernatural Season 15, Tissue Warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:08:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26398411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noxbait/pseuds/Noxbait
Summary: Season 15. They'd made promises before. They'd broken promises before. This was stronger. More complete. More unbreakable than any vow could ever be. The Winchester boys take a midnight drive. Tissue Warning.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 36





	Together

**Author's Note:**

> Well, today's been an emotional day with it being SPN's final day of filming. I was working on a different project and then was looking at all the posts on tumblr and thinking about these two boys that I love so much and this little story just flew onto the page. I wanted to post today in memory of the final day of filming and it also happens to be my 80th fic!
> 
> Tissue warning. If you don't ALREADY have tissues at hand, I suggest you grab some. (I'm stocking up for November 19th already). I may or may not have cried while writing this entire story...
> 
> This story is set current season and fits into the narrative without really disturbing anything. Just a possible quiet moment we might not see on the show, but I like to believe might happen...

* * *

_**Together** _

There was a tap at his door and Dean looked up from Dad's journal.

"Hey." Sam leaned against the door jamb, hands in his pockets.

"Hey. What's up?"

Sam shrugged, a frown creasing his face as he nodded toward the journal. "Dad's journal?"

"Yeah. Just thought I'd take a look through it in case."

"In case?"

"In case there's something in here that somehow is the solution to…everything." Dean waved his hand. It sounded stupid saying it aloud.

Sam's eyebrow rose. "Everything, huh? Don't you think we would've found that before now?"

Dean snorted.

"It's not like we haven't read through that thing a million times over the years." Sam smiled briefly, his gaze on the worn journal. "If there was an answer to... everything, I think we might have stumbled across it."

"Never hurts to double check." Dean closed the journal, his fingers rubbing over the familiar, smooth leather. "Did you want something?"

"Not really."

Dean gave him a moment to elaborate, but he didn't. Just stared at the journal. Clearing his throat, Dean asked, "You want to try looking for the answer to everything?"

"It's forty-two," Sam said, another hint of a smile briefly lifting his lips.

Letting the _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ reference pass, Dean pushed himself to his feet and set the journal on his desk. Sam watched him, but didn't say anything.

"Not that this isn't a fun chat and all-"

"You want to take a drive?" Sam asked before Dean could finish his statement.

"It's after midnight." Dean frowned at his watch, more confused by the second.

"Were you planning to sleep?"

Dean crossed his arms. "Apparently you aren't."

Sam shrugged, pushing off from the door jamb. "We don't have to."

"Hey, I'm always up for a midnight drive." Dean reached for his boots. "Let's go."

"Ok."

Dean's frown deepened as Sam turned and walked away. Shoving his feet into his boots, Dean hurried to follow his brother. Sam wasn't rushing through the Bunker, just taking his time and glancing around as he walked. It was a bit...strange. Dean grabbed his jacket off the chair in the library as Sam slowly rounded the table, his fingers tracing the books and scattered files.

"Are you ok?" Dean asked, pulling his jacket on as his mind went from _this is strange_ straight to _something is wrong._

"Yeah, fine." Sam nodded, glancing his way. He pulled his own jacket on, tossing the keys across the table.

"Fine. Uh huh. Why's it seem like you're looking around here like it's _The Famous Final Scene_ or something? All sentimentally."

Sam laughed, amusement lighting his eyes. There was something else in his tone, though, when he said, "You never know."

"Never know _what_?" Dean asked, side by side with his brother as they walked up the steps.

"When it might be the last time." Sam waved a hand as they reached the landing. "To see this place. Doesn't it strike you as...odd, I guess, that we don't even think about it anymore?"

"Think about what? I'm not sure I'm awake enough for a deep conversation so use small sentences."

Sam opened the door and a rush of cool September air washed over them.

"I just was thinking that we take it for granted is all," Sam explained as they crossed the grass to the Impala. "We never had a permanent place growing up and then we've had this place for years now. And it's home. And it just struck me that we don't know when we'll walk out the door and never go back."

"Good grief." Dean shook his head as he pulled the driver's side door open. "You're in a freakishly morbid mood."

"Not morbid." Sam rested his elbows on top of the roof. "It's just that we've gotten used to living this almost normal kind of life. We think about groceries and we have a place to come home to instead of living on the road every day of every year. With everything going on, I just...sometimes it scares me that we're...that this is so…"

His voice trailed off.

There was a whippoorwill in the near distance and Dean felt a shiver run down his spine that had nothing to do with the chill of the night or the near silence around them.

"So normal?" Dean asked, after a few seconds searching for the right thing to say.

"Not normal, exactly." Sam tapped the top of the car, shaking his head. He pulled open his door. "Good. Things are so good."

"Yeah. They are."

They both got into their seats, pulling the doors closed simultaneously. Dean couldn't help but smile at the perfectly timed slam of the doors. They'd spent nearly an entire summer when they'd been kids perfecting the art of slamming the doors at the exact same instant. It had driven Dad crazy, but then he'd come to appreciate it.

"Things _are_ good," Dean continued, starting the engine. "So what's your point?"

"There isn't one. Not really. I just was thinking."

"Always dangerous."

Sam settled more comfortably in his seat and said, "With everything we're facing right now, there's a chance one of these days we might not make it home. You know?"

It was all too true, but Dean was loath to think like that let alone say it aloud.

"We've made it this far," he said instead. "This isn't even the worst crisis we've been through."

"We've made it this far, but we've also _died._ Don't you ever...think about it?"

"It?"

Sam rested his elbow on the seat back, turning to look at Dean. "Yes. It. Dying."

"I should've given you some whiskey and sent you to bed," Dean muttered. "You're awfully depressing."

"I'm not trying to be, I'm just being realistic."

Dean frowned. "Realistic?"

"Yes, realistic." Sam nodded, looking far too earnest. "How many times have we literally cheated Death? Sometime we're not going to and…"

His voice trailed off again.

He really didn't want to know the rest of it, but Dean found himself prompting, "And? And what?"

"And I think…" Sam took a deep breath. "I think I'm ok with it."

Dean's fingers clamped down on the steering wheel. "Well I'm not. And if you're going to be this dismal, you can walk home."

"Aren't you ok with it?"

"With _dying_? No, Sam, I'm not ok with that."

"Do you have regrets?" Sam asked, studying him without flinching.

"Yes. Hell yes! Of course I do. I have so many regrets that I could -"

"Sure," Sam cut him off. "I do too. Everybody has regrets. I'm not talking about regretting _ordinary_ things like forgetting a birthday or something. I'm talking about regretting _big_ things."

Dean gritted his teeth, finding more and more reasons to hate this conversation.

"If we died tonight, I would be ok with it because I'm ok with us."

Sam's words obliterated every emotion Dean had been feeling. Something else - something that wasn't depression or anger or confusion - took over. Something that felt an awful lot like _peace._

"There were a lot of years that we weren't ok, Dean," Sam said softly. "I look back over our entire lives, especially over the fifteen years since you showed up at Stanford and all I think is how _grateful_ I am that we made it here to this night. How thankful I am for everything we've built together. Everything we've made it through."

"Yeah." Dean cleared his throat, flipping on the radio. "Yeah, I'm thankful too. Thankful that we can find a bar and get some beer and _not_ have a chick flick moment."

Sam smiled, not buying Dean's flippancy. Probably something about the way his voice had cracked a little and his eyes might have gotten a little misty. Or something.

"We don't need a bar," Sam said, motioning over his shoulder. "Cooler's in the trunk. Locked and loaded."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "You _really_ weren't planning on sleeping tonight, were you?"

"It's a nice night for stargazing."

"Seriously, you're not dying or something, right?" Dean narrowed his eyes, reaching a hand out to check for fever. "Is that what this is about?"

"I'm not dying. Not that I know of anyway." Sam batted his hand away.

"Uh huh."

"I just wanted to take some time to...appreciate what we have. What we've been given."

Dean opened his mouth to offer another flippant comment, but nothing came out. He closed his mouth and concentrated on the road. They were the only car on the road and, as Sam had said, the stars were out, shining brightly in the darkness. So many nights they'd counted the stars together. So many nights they'd been together.

"Together."

"What?" Sam asked, shifting in his seat.

"I'm ok with it." Dean had to clear his throat again. He kept his gaze firmly on the road ahead. "I'm ok with...dying. Not ok, but...ok. You know what I mean."

"Yeah, I do."

Dean glanced over, seeing nothing but sincerity and deep, unspeakable emotion in his brother's eyes.

"Nothing comes between us, Dean." Sam's voice was steel. "Nothing. Nothing ever again. We are in this, in _everything,_ together. I can't even think about anything else. Any other option or scenario. If it comes, however it comes, if it comes tomorrow or in thirty years, together?"

Throat too tight to speak, Dean nodded.

"I don't want to live without you," Sam said, his voice softer now. "And I sure as hell don't want to die without you."

"You won't, Sammy." The words broke free and Dean met his brother's gaze as he said, "Together."

"Together."

The words sealed the moment; sealed the future.

It wasn't just a promise. They'd made promises before. They'd broken promises before. This was stronger. More complete. More unbreakable than any vow could ever be.

It was blood and life and death and hope and fear and trust and faith. It was a lifetime - _lifetimes_ \- of being brothers. It was futures and pasts and the present. It was their everything.

It was love.

Dean pulled the car off the road and bumped it down the rutted dirt track to the field they'd discovered about a year after moving into the Bunker. A few minutes later, he put the Impala into park, his hands lingering on the wheel for a moment longer than usual. Thousands of memories were contained in the Impala. Good times and bad. Their lives in a microcosm of sleek, black Detroit steel.

They opened their doors together, then slammed them together.

Meeting at the back of the car, Dean opened the trunk. Sam grabbed the cooler from within the nest of weapons. They carried it to the front of the car. Dean pulled out two ice cold beers, handing one to his brother. Together, they settled on the hood of the car like they had so many, many times before.

For a long time, they sat in silence, staring up at the sky.

Dean finished his beer and said, "I always wanted a home. A family."

"I know. I'm sorry you didn't get..."

"I've got both."

Dean reached down for two more bottles and caught the small smile on his brother's face. After taking a long sip, Dean looked back up at the sky. He rested his foot on the bumper and said, "Just because you've made tonight some kind of epic emotional catharsis thing, I'm going on record as saying that I'm not saying goodbye. Not ever. So don't ask me to. And so help me if I ever hear that come out of your mouth-"

"It won't."

And damn if it didn't sound like Sam was fighting back tears.

_This is why I don't do chick flick moments._

But because he was already in the middle of one, he added, "I hope we get old. Really old."

A watery laugh beside him. A shoulder leaning against his. A slightly unsteady breath matching his.

Together, they stared up at the stars, two pieces of one whole.

"I should've queued up Bob."

Sam laughed, casually wiping a hand over his face. "Let me guess. _The Famous Final Scene._ "

"What else?"

"Now who's getting maudlin?"

"Seemed the thing to do." Dean shrugged. "We go out swinging. Whenever we go out."

"Damn straight."

They tapped their beers together, then drained them.

"Hey, Dean."

"Yeah?"

"I know we've never really said it," Sam said, hesitating briefly, "even when we've died, but -"

"I love you, Sammy."

The words came out easier than anything he'd ever said before in his entire life.

"Yeah. I love you, too."

They didn't say another word the rest of the night because, really, what else needed to be said?

The stars faded, the sun rose, and then they went out for breakfast.

Maybe it was the "Final Scene" or maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was just the beginning of the next scene of the rest of their lives. Whatever it was, they would face it.

Together.

And together was a pretty damn great place to be.

_the end_

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Tissue?
> 
> ~Soundtrack~
> 
> Brother - Lord Huron
> 
> If I Could Fly - One Direction
> 
> Famous Final Scene - Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band
> 
> See You Again - Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth
> 
> I Will Return - Skylar Grey
> 
> This is Home - Switchfoot


End file.
